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KATMA CleanControl OFFERS extracurricular STEM education with EU funding
At KATMA CleanControl's extracurricular learning facility, we want to get school-age children and young people interested in technical contexts and phenomena as well as digitalization in a fun way. At the same time, we want to inspire technically experienced participants with practical and career-oriented technical innovations and applications. Here, boys and girls can experience, understand and shape science, open systems and industrial technology. Our premises and technical equipment create the ideal conditions for this. KATMA CleanControl employees, including trainees, provide expert support and active suggestions for school groups as well as hobby and leisure tinkerers. We want to encourage and challenge the creativity of children and young people, make a contribution to integration and, last but not least, increase the attractiveness of STEM professions.
WHY IS KATMA INVOLVED?
During the pandemic, our co-founder Patrick Kathöfer has supported many schools and extracurricular and educational institutions as a freelancer in equipping, training and running digital and remote courses. Experiments, instructions and loaned equipment were often sent to participants and then worked on together in video conferences in all-day vacation courses with in-depth topics.
We have adopted this STEM support culture by founding KATMA CleanControl in the form of on-site courses. As our young company is located far from residential areas and away from bus stops in rural areas, we are sometimes difficult for children and young people to reach outside of the pandemic. A second hurdle is that many participants do not have suitable and standardized hardware and software for our courses. This is still causing remote courses to fail time and time again. We often lack the hardware to hold a professional web conference to teach the children and other interested parties online or in alternating hybrid mode. We maintain good contacts with the schools in the area, but we always find that the participants identify better with the course in the out-of-school organization.
HOW DOES REACT-EU FUNDING HELP US?
Thanks to REACT-EU funding, we are able to provide students with the hardware and software they need for our programs - especially to reach young people who do not have their own suitable laptop. In rural areas in particular, local services for young people and children are difficult or almost impossible to access. This is why we provide the option of hybrid participation with the laptops.
Teaching programming skills in particular, be it via Scratch, Python, HTML, CSS, JavaScript or professional PLC programming, as well as an understanding of the design and development of digital 3D objects, is becoming increasingly important in STEM education. This will enable us to expand our portfolio in the long term and offer a point of contact for young people who have previously had too little access to offers involving the use of PCs.
